I always find with ballads there’s a minimum tempo below which the song cannot hold together, like a certain amount of speed translated into centrifugal force is needed to keep a plate spinning I suppose.
(That bit may be cobblers ‘ sorry[…]

Elvis acts the teenybop star while a hand-picked band of groovers play musical statues behind him. ‘I Got Stung’ is lighthearted and goofy, all jerking elbows and dipping knees and none of that inbetweeny stuff Presley had traded on befor[…]

And because the pop charts aren’t a nice smooth story what happened next was this! A stern and hearty pop ballad which starts off on a nature tip – ‘The day that the rains came down / Mother Earth smiled again’. This is a good[…]

Every track on popular gets a mark out of 10. Here’s your opportunity to give ticks to any track from 1958 you would have given more than 6 to.

Number Ones Of 1958: Which would you have given 6 or more to?
Jerry Lee Lewis – “Gr[…]

‘It’s Only Make Believe’ takes a male pop archetype ‘ booming, stirring, strident ‘ and flips it, so that each verse builds up not to a confident declaration but to a shattered, lonely howl. Twitty was a country singer b[…]

‘POP ROT! CALL A HALT NOW!’ screamed the Melody Maker on November 8th. Of course it was too late. It had probably been too late for years, but by June 1958 the game was absolutely up ‘ ITV launched its music show Oh Boy! and pop in […]

When your heart is breaking, wise words are the last thing you want to hear and false hopes the first. In this ballad Tommy Edwards offers a bit of both ‘ a knowing shake of the head that turns into a sly nod, just as the music stops and the ba[…]

“Stupid Cupid” on the other hand deploys its gimmicks with confidence and humour. That –tzoinng!– guitar sound; the sassy handclaps; the cute voicebreaks – but these things wouldn’t work if the song itself wasn&#82[…]

Hal and Herb Kalin’s only UK hit is a breezy little thing, floor-friendly and with enough quirky touches to suggest that something a bit more demented is trying to break the pop surface. It never quite does – the castanets are mere emphas[…]

The version of “‘Dream” I know best is Glen Campbell’s. It always seemed a sad song to me; lonesome and woozy. The Everlys’ recording is bittersweet at worst. The key line in the song is the ‘gee whiz’ one &#[…]